I didn’t see the whole later exchange on this topic (just first post) Sorry to bring it back up!! (eek)
FWIW At my kids school you can’t even remove the provided furniture, even if you bring it back at end of year, how (and if) they enforce that I don’t know though.
Please move on or start a new thread about income disparities and dorm decorating. Future posts will deleted.
Thanks for understanding!
While we will still have a younger daughter at home once D25 goes to school, this has been an active conversation in our house! Our younger girl is vegetarian while the rest of us are open to anything, so for the past three years I have been making our meals with the meat/protein being the side dish, and everyone adds in their preference. The approach we will be taking once D25 goes to school is sticking to the vegetarian’s diet and only buying meat once in a while for us or when D25 comes home. But figuring out the right portions will for sure be tricky!
This sounds just like our household, including the milk budget! One thing I found was a large bag of frozen roasted mixed veggies from Costco. I can make a meat, starch and throw those in a pan and have an easy complete meal. This helps with the waste issue. They are also delicious.
@mr24272 - I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking this will be a challenge! I mean, I 100% do have a habit of overthinking things, so that’s probably happening too. But I remember when my older son went off to college I ended up with so much accidental wasted fruit. The kid was such a fruit eater and it took me a good month or two to get my regular grocery shop dialed back and adjusted to what became the new normal for only three people in the house instead of four. I didn’t want to throw any fruit away, so I ended up freezing lots of it to use in later smoothies. But that won’t work with, like, sandwich meat or some other stuff. so I’m going to try to be more attentive this time.
@Blmom23 - I never thought about frozen veggies. I have no idea why not, but such an easy and obvious solution. Thank you - I will absolutely do that! And the milk! It was so bad when my S22 was home too - he needed the super high protein whole milk to try to maintain enough calories (he rowed crew and just burned through calories) so we bought the extra protein fairlife whole milk for him - so pricey. Then S25 didn’t need quite that level, but he drinks a lot, so he gets 2% and both boys drink at least a gallon and a half on their own each week. Then husband and I split a gallon of skim. I feel like for a few years there, my refrigerator was nothing but a milk way station. I will be glad to not have that going on.
I tend to cook things that S25 will eat (like very pasta and/or red meat forward dishes), which is different from what my husband and I prefer. I am hoping to get back to cooking healthier meals with less carbs once S25 heads off. And maybe get back to cooking together with my husband like we did when we were first married. But that is probably wishful thinking. I may finally break down and buy an air fryer, since it seems easier to use for just two of us. I have many grand plans as an empty nester to eat healthier and work out more, but, again, that is probably wishful thinking.
The only empty nester plan that I am 100% committed to making happen is more travel. We just booked flights to Scotland for our 25th anniversary next year, and I’m excited to have something new to obsess over and plan for once the college planning/prepping is over.
My husband does the cooking. Figuring out meals for 2 people is his problem. 
That being said, having kids who split time between 2 houses for the last 15 years, my husband is used to days where its just the 2 of us so he has adjusted.
Personally, I feel like this is a good time for experimentation. Part of having kids is teaching them society’s structures – like eat your meals at mealtime, all together, etc.
But, what if my husband and I are big breakfast eaters, and neither of us could care less about dinner being a gathering time? Maybe we can restructure things so that we spend time eating a solid breakfast with fresh fruit and yogurt and whatever. Then we have sandwiches for lunch, and by dinner time, meh, maybe some popcorn and peeled carrots. Effort in the morning, less effort in the evening.
Or maybe neither of us much care about breakfast (as long as the coffee maker is doing its job). But lunch is really when we eat. So, we have our big meal at 1pm, and more of a snack at dinner time.
Now that we’re not providing structure for anyone else, it’s time to explore what we want, and what fuels us well for the day.
I’ve been referring to this next year as our “Golden Year” – since the year after, we may have a “boomerang kid” if the economy doesn’t pick up and he’s done with college and he can’t get a job that can pay rent & food & transportation. At which point we’d need to readjust again.
But, we can look forward to 1 year of “just the two of us” and “going on dates” and generally just enjoying each other’s company again.
I know my husband wants to explore pushing more towards vegetarianism. Which I can handle. I can’t go full vegan though, too many of my go-to foods are dairy-based. 
I mean, the joke when we had 6 people in the house was that I didn’t know how to cook for fewer than 12.
There’s only so many leftovers a couple can eat, you know?
(Which is to say yeah, same situation here, and I have absolutely no solutions.)
ETA: Though one nice thing about being empty nesters is the loss of food aversions. C25 can’t stand mushrooms, and can taste them in parts per thousand. (Seriously, I’ve checked.) Can you imagine how absolutely amazing it will be to have those back in my cooking arsenal?
I am reminded of one of my favorite George Carlin lines:
Leftovers make you feel good twice.
First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: “I’m saving food!”
Then, a month later, when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: “I’m saving my life!”
I’m so impressed with the fact you all cook so regularly- lol. I hate to cook but my husband would do it a couple times a week for dinner so we had some face time with s25. We used a meal prep like Hello Fresh for that because my husband ate lunch’s at work and just oatmeal for breakfast. I have coffee for breakfast and a small snack or two for lunch.
Now that it’s summer and we’re almost empty nesters, I’ve moved to individual meal prep from Factor or Thistle etc for my dinners and my husband does small snack for dinner and big lunch at work. No more cooking in our house except for the occasional holiday/birthday or for meal prepping lunch for my hubby (baked chicken) when he’s tired of eating out at work. Basically everyone is on there own for food in the house. I shop weekly and make sure we have fruits and chicken breasts and healthy snacks, protein drinks/bars etc.
my son has taken this last summer to learn to cook a few things. Scrambled eggs and baked chicken breasts. (He’s an athlete so bring on the protein) So that’s what he does most days for Brunch/dinner time.
More power to you cooks out there!
I like your reframing! I may see if I can find a way to make that work. Since I’m out of the house for work by 6:20, I tend to be a coffee only in the house, pack a breakfast and lunch person. And since I’m fairly lazy about the packing, dinner is where I try to make it more fun or more robust, so I don’t see that changing. But it doesn’t mean we can’t do more things like more frequent breakfast for dinner (we love breakfast food) or like a variety of snack-y things. I’ll have to think about that. Dinner is pretty much the easiest time to talk with my husband too - as he really likes TV after dinner and I really like quiet to read. So the ritual of the meal is important to me, as it’s my main catch up time. But that doesn’t mean that the meal needs to be a typical dinner, just a being together.
I really want to focus on the just the two of us fun aspects more… but it needs to be cheap fun. I’m really hoping to retire early, so I’m trying to trim our spending sails a bit now, so that in 5-6 years it feels normal, and not like we’re withholding something from ourselves.
I’ve talked before about not having any hobbies - I think one of my empty nest goals is going to be to find out more about the free and low cost things my community has to offer. I * know * there’s stuff out there that I’m not taking advantage of. Surely I can find us some fun stuff to do.
I hope you find something you will love to do! About 3 years ago I took some advice from a friend whose kids already all moved out to find things I like to do outside of being a mom. I have joined some organizations and started a few new hobbies. I didn’t want to spend more time at work once my kid left. In my job it is easy to do.
Cooking: I cook nearly every night and, since I work from home, I LOVE leftovers. They make my lunchtime so much easier! Take advantage of your freezer, both for ingredients and for prepared meals. You can freeze in portions for quick meals later. Maybe it’ll give a little bit of wiggle room for not throwing things out while you figure out proportions for things that don’t freeze as well.
AP scores: the stringbird household was slightly disappointed with the results. My daughter got a 5 for Psychology (she only needed a 3 for credit) but a 3 for Calculus AB (where she needed a 5 for placement). Ah well.
Dorm decoration: my daughter’s roommate has a somewhat lengthy list of items she’s hoping the two girls can divvy up and bring. She also has a specific color scheme in mind. It’s kind of cute. My daughter couldn’t care less (“What’s a mattress topper? Oh. Nope, I don’t want that.”) but agreed to bring some of the items from the list that she thinks would be useful. I was happy to locate them in the correct color scheme. I wonder how this roommate pairing will go? Time will tell. And, it’s really soon now!
Make sure to tell her how thin the dorm mattresses are!!! They are typically about half the thickness of many people’s home mattresses.
Though some people don’t need them! I don’t think I could do it anymore, but probably the best sleep I ever got in my life was back in my 20s, when I had to sleep on about 3 centimeters of (not memory!) foam atop a thick sheet of plywood.
D25’s school already updated her schedule based on her recent AP scores and now we have a dilemma. Based on her 5 on AP Gov. they moved her from Into to Poly Sci to a history course, which is fine. That saves her 3 credits since she has now met one of the core requirements. The dilemma is her Computer Science course. She was enrolled in in Comp Sci 1 and now is placed in Comp Sci 2. She got a 4 on Computer Science Principles, but the school website says it’s a 4 or higher on Computer Science A (it doesn’t mention Comp Sci principles at all) for placement above Comp Sci 1. I think there might be a mistake. And I really think she should start with Comp Sci 1, even if it is mainly review. She will get to meet with her academic advisor at orientation next week, so hopefully she will have a chance to ask some questions.
We are temporary pseudo empty nesters while my younger child is at sleepaway camp and C25 is spending a lot of evenings with friends. There’s a lot of PB&J, not gonna lie, but I don’t think I could do it long term. I’ve found the portions in the New York Times cooking app to be pretty good for 2-4 people. The recipes are usually set for 4 and so it’s like 1 dinner and we each get something good for lunch. Or maybe we stretch it with some kind of addition to make the leftovers another slightly different dinner the next night. Love that you can link your instacart and just add recipe ingredients straight from the cooking app to your cart! (Though, I guess who needs Instacart when you’re free from the child chauffeur/cheerleader/pickup/dropoff obligations? Wandering the grocery aisles might seem like a good date night!)
That kid can sleep anywhere! But tomorrow night she’ll sleep on one of their mattresses for orientation. We’ll see if she changes her tune!
Im actually just sending a mattress topper not a foam mattress pad with D25 next month. Not enclosing the mattress and the topper fits like a normal fitted sheet (but with longer/deeper wrap so to speak). If she thinks it isnt comfortable I will send a mattress pad at a later date. She has survived on dorm mattresses alone at dance camps and S23 just threw his away and I felt it was wasteful.